• The European Commission filed antitrust charges against Amazon.com Inc. for allegedly abusing its market power by using non-public data about third-party merchants on its e-commerce platform to compete with them. The E.U. regulator also opened a second probe into whether the company practices anti-competitive behavior in its logistics and delivery services; Amazon said in a statement that it disagreed with “the preliminary assertions of the European Commission and will continue to make every effort to ensure it has an accurate understanding of the facts.” (The Associated Press)

• Zoom Video Communications Inc. will have to establish a new information security program if a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission is approved, resolving a case alleging that the video conferencing company claimed that its video calls were more secure than they actually were. The settlement does not include a monetary fine, but any future violation will be subject to fines of up to $43,280, the agency said. (Reuters)

• The Justice Department is expected to approve Uber Technologies Inc.’s $2.65 billion acquisition of Postmates Inc., according to a source familiar with the deal, despite concerns over consolidation in the food delivery app space. Uber moved to acquire Postmates this summer after its talks with Grubhub Inc. fell apart following mounting scrutiny from U.S. and European officials. (Axios)

• Bill Russo, a spokesperson for President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign, said Facebook Inc. is “shredding the fabric of our democracy” by not taking swifter actions against posts inciting violence following Election Day. The comments are another example of the Biden campaign’s continued criticism of Facebook after the campaign called on the platform to do more to police false and misleading content ahead of the election. (Bloomberg) 

The former CEO of Google has applied to become a citizen of Cyprus
Theodore Schleifer, Recode

The former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is finalizing a plan to become a citizen of the island of Cyprus, Recode has learned, becoming one of the highest-profile Americans to take advantage of one of the world’s most controversial “passport-for-sale” programs.

AI, Quantum R&D Funding to Remain a Priority Under Biden
Sara Castellanos, The Wall Street Journal

Artificial intelligence and quantum information science are expected to remain key priorities for the U.S. under a Joe Biden presidency, but his spending and regulatory approaches are expected to differ from that of President Trump. The U.S. has underinvested in research and development efforts relative to historical norms and peer nations on a per capita basis, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

Joe Biden Gives Big Tech a Different Kind of Washington Problem
Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg Businessweek

At about 2:30 a.m. on Friday, with his chances for reelection looking grim, President Trump rage-tweeted about Twitter itself, saying the company was “out of control” and blaming a 24-year-old law that he falsely claims encourages America’s leading tech companies to censor their conservative users.

NASA administrator says he plans to leave position under Biden administration
Loren Grush, The Verge

Jim Bridenstine says the NASA administrator should be close with the president. 

Who’s Still Covered by California’s Gig Worker Law?
Aarian Marshall, Wired

Uber and Lyft led a ballot measure that exempts them from AB 5. But millions of janitors, retail workers, and others are still covered by the statute.

The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare for This
Erin Griffith, The New York Times

For a certain kind of worker, the pandemic presented a rupture in the space-time-career continuum. Many Americans were stuck, tied down by children or lost income or obligations to take care of the sick. But for those who were unencumbered, with steady jobs that were doable from anywhere, it was a moment to grab destiny and bend employment to their favor.

U.S. judge to hear dispute over Google DOJ antitrust lawsuit protective order
David Shepardson, Reuters

A U.S. judge said on Monday he will consider arguments in a disputed order related to the protection of confidential information in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit filed against Alphabet Inc’s Google LLC unit. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta directed the government and Google to file by Friday “position statements outlining their respective positions on the disputed terms of a protective order.”

Silicon Valley Gets Another President Skeptical of Big Tech
Sarah E. Needleman and Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal

As a candidate, Joe Biden lambasted Facebook Inc. for what he considered failures to contain the spread of misinformation. His presidential election win puts him in a position to do something about it.

China proposes antitrust law ahead of Singles’ Day shopping spree
Rita Liao, TechCrunch

Debates over anti-competitive practices amongst China’s internet firms resurface every year in the lead up to Singles’ Day, a time when online retailers exhaust their resources and deploy sometimes sneaky tactics to attract vendors and shoppers. This year, just a day before the world’s largest shopping festival was scheduled to fall on November 11, China’s market regulator announced a set of draft rules that could rein in the monopolistic behavior of the country’s top internet firms.

Europe fined Google nearly $10 billion for antitrust violations, but little has changed
Jeanne Whalen, The Washington Post

The European Union spent a decade pursuing Google on antitrust charges, ultimately fining the company nearly $10 billion for using illegal tactics to abuse its dominant position on the market. But two years after the bloc’s biggest rulings, very little competition has emerged, in part because the E.U. largely left it to Google to fix the problems, antitrust lawyers and Google competitors say.

Huawei to sell smartphone unit for $15 billion to Shenzhen government, Digital China, others – sources
Julie Zhu, Reuters

Huawei plans to sell budget-brand smartphone unit Honor in a 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) deal to a consortium led by handset distributor Digital China and the government of its home town of Shenzhen, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Apple Event: New Mac Computers Expected With In-House Processing Power
Tim Higgins, The Wall Street Journal

While excitement for Apple Inc.’s new iPhones has helped boost the company’s share price to record highs, a nearly 40-year-old workhorse with stagnating sales in recent years is notching impressive growth: the Mac. Sales of the computer line rose 29% in the past quarter to a record $9 billion.

T-Mobile expands 4G LTE home internet service to 130 more cities and towns
Eli Blumenthal, CNET

T-Mobile is expanding its 4G LTE-based home internet service, the carrier announced on Monday, bringing the offering to over “130 additional cities and towns across nine states.” The $50-per-month offering, which is already available in parts of 450 cities and towns around the country, includes taxes and fees in its price, as well as unlimited data with “no data caps.”

Voters Overwhelmingly Back Community Broadband in Chicago and Denver
Karl Bode, Motherboard

Voters in both Denver and Chicago have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind local community broadband projects, joining the hundreds of U.S. communities that have embraced home-grown alternatives to entrenched telecom monopolies.

Amazon, Microsoft Dial Up Efforts to Win Telecom Cloud Business
Aaron Tilley, The Wall Street Journal

The rollout of 5G networks isn’t just a major business opportunity for smartphone makers and telecommunications providers. Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google also are ready to pounce.

Facebook and Google are still banning political ads. Dems say that’s bad news for the Georgia runoffs.
Issie Lapowsky, Protocol

The fate of the United States Senate will be determined by two Georgia runoffs scheduled for less than two months from now — and Democrats say Facebook and Google are already screwing it up. The two companies have been temporarily blocking all political ads from running on their platforms since Election Day.

Parler, a conservative Twitter clone, has seen nearly 1 million downloads since Election Day
Russell Brandom, The Verge

Conservative angst over President Trump’s loss has resulted in a surge of downloads for Parler, a conservative social network founded as an ideological alternative to Facebook and Twitter. According to data from SensorTower, Parler’s app saw 980,000 downloads in total between November 3rd (Election Day) and November 8th, with more than half of those downloads (636,000) coming on Sunday alone. (The totals represent both Google Play Store and iOS App Store downloads.)

Facebook removes network of pages tied to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon
Salvador Rodriguez, CNBC

Facebook on Monday removed a network of pages tied to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon for using tricks to increase their reach.  “We’ve removed several clusters of activity for using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content,” a spokesman for the company said in a statement.

YouTube Election Loophole Lets Some False Trump-Win Videos Spread
Mark Bergen, Bloomberg

On Monday, cable outlet One America News Network posted two videos to its YouTube account titled “Trump won.” The clips echoed several others telling viewers, falsely, that U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected and that the vote was marred by fraud.

TikTok users troll Trump “voter fraud” reporting hotline en masse
Kate Cox, Ars Technica

If you’ve turned on a radio, television, or Internet-connected device since last Monday, you’ve probably heard that there was a federal election in the United States this past week. After waiting through four days of election officials nationwide working to tally up ballots as fast as they could, all major media outlets on Saturday agreed that the Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, won the election, paving the path for him to be sworn in as our 46th president in January.

EU agrees on tighter rules for surveillance tech exports
The Associated Press

The European Union on Monday agreed to tighten up rules for the sale and export of cybersurveillance technology. EU lawmakers and the European Council reached a provisional deal to update controls of so-called dual use goods such as facial recognition technology and spyware to prevent them from being used to violate human rights.

Biden’s hard stand on foreign election interference signals funding fight
Maggie Miller, The Hill

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a hard line against foreign election interference by pushing back against persistent cyber adversaries like Russia and Iran. Biden took a hard line on the issue in the lead-up to last week’s election, warning as recently as October that countries seeking to interfere in U.S. elections would “pay a price.”

Prop 22 just passed in California — now what?
Bradley Tusk, The Hill

If you work in the sharing economy in California, it’s been a confusing 18 months. First, the state legislature in Sacramento passed a law that said that anyone who works in the sharing economy — Uber and Lyft drivers, DoorDash and Postmates delivery people and so on — would now be treated as a full-time employee and not an independent contractor.

A California setback for gig economy workers
The Editorial Board, Financial Times

Referendum on labour rules for platform companies is bad policymaking.

First 100 Days: Building Our Connected Future
USTelecom

Congratulations on being elected by the American people to lead our country through these challenging times. U.S. broadband companies stand ready to work with the new Administration, Congress and our many partners to advance the future of American connectivity.